In our daily activities, we constantly interact with our environment. This environment is dynamic and requires the integration of various objects, motions, speeds, locations, etc. As a result, the brain's executive functions are constantly managing myriads of stimuli. Risk of information overload is present in many real-life situations. Ability to deal quickly with unpredictability of stimuli in time sensitive situations is a real-life need in the office, in sports, in school, and in crisis management situations.
Attention and focus applied to strategic inputs can make a difference between winning and losing in sports activities, in learning new skills, in facing dangerous situations, and leading a successful professional career. Attention and focus, especially in stressful situations, enable filtering and prioritizing of data while disregarding irrelevant distractors.
In the case of elderly people or persons with certain disabilities, deficits in attention and focus can cause serious problems in routine activities. For instance, travelling through a crowd while avoiding collisions and maintaining orientation and good motor control requires fluent and continuous perceptual-cognitive processing. It is well documented that effects of healthy aging can influence perceptual cognitive processes.
Loss of attention and impaired impulse control can be a severe problem for children with attention deficit disorder, with or without hyperactivity, and for autistic children.
The need to improve attention and focus is therefore present in a broad range of individuals. This need is especially present in persons having learning disabilities or with degrading cognitive functions. This need is also present in elite athletes who need to “read the game” while following the trajectory of a ball, and in members of many professions who need deal with masses of information.
Therefore, there is a need for solutions that help improve cognitive functions, whether for children having learning disabilities, aging persons, athletes or professionals operating in stressful environments.